THEY COULD HAVE GOTTEN THE SAME INTELLIGENCE BY LISTENING TO HIM:

British Intelligence Warned of Iraq War: Blair Was Told of White House's Determination to Use Military Against Hussein (Walter Pincus, May 13, 2005, Washington Post)

Seven months before the invasion of Iraq, the head of British foreign intelligence reported to Prime Minister Tony Blair that President Bush wanted to topple Saddam Hussein by military action and warned that in Washington intelligence was "being fixed around the policy," according to notes of a July 23, 2002, meeting with Blair at No. 10 Downing Street.

"Military action was now seen as inevitable," said the notes, summarizing a report by Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, British intelligence, who had just returned from consultations in Washington along with other senior British officials. Dearlove went on, "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD [weapons of mass destruction]. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

"The case was thin," summarized the notes taken by a British national security aide at the meeting. "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."

In his very entertaining book, The Accidental American: Tony Blair and the Presidency, James Naughtie makes it perfectly clear that the only reason there even was a WMD issue was because Tony Blair thought he needed it to sell the war to his Party and people. George Bush had not only decided to go to war on the basis of regime change alone but told Mr. Blair as late as March 9, 2003 that the Brits needn't come along if it was creating problems for him at home.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 14, 2005 2:01 PM